Ostberg to play it safe

Mads Ostberg has said he won’t jeopardise his place on the podium on Vodafone Rally de Portugal by pushing all out to catch Mikko Hirvonen in the battle for victory on round four of the FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia.

Although the Norwegian has slipped to 47.3s behind Hirvonen after he experienced a loss of engine power on stage 13, the Adapta World Rally Team driver remains firmly in contention for top spot.

“At the moment it is not so easy - I am going quickly but we are also in quite a safe podium position so I don’t want to risk that,” said Ostberg, who is currently fourth in the WRC drivers’ standings following strong results in Sweden and Mexico this season. “Of course I try to catch Mikko but the focus has be to seal the position I am in and there is some pressure on me to do that.”

Following the problems that struck the factory Ford duo of Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg on Friday, Ostberg is the leading Fiesta driver at the halfway point of day two. Evgeny Novikov, in another Fiesta RS WRC, is third overall.